Christmas Piñata Cookies

Merry Christmas y'all!

I'm back with a vengeance! School is finally done for good and I will finally have the time to dedicate to sharing my mindless crafting with the world!

This year, instead of Christmas cards, I decided to make Christmas cookies. Not just ANY cookies- I scoured the internet for ideas to really make these cookies the best! My friends deserve THE BEST!

Now I will share this with you!

These cookies are absolutely to-die-for. They taste wonderful and were easier to make then they look.

First, I baked a double batch of these no-fail cut out cookies that I found on this blog here. I copied it below. So easy. So yummy!

Best Sugar Cookie Recipe

PRINT

YIELD: 3 dozen cookies

PREP TIME: 30 minutes

COOK TIME: 6-8 minutes

TOTAL TIME: 38 minutes

Soft cut out sugar cookie recipe that keeps its shape and dough does not need to be chilled before baking- perfect edges every time!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 Cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 Cup granulated white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3 cups all purpose flour

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. In the bowl of your mixer cream butter and sugar until smooth.
3. Beat in extracts and egg.
4. In a separate bowl combine baking powder with flour and add a little at a time to the wet ingredients. The dough will be very stiff. If it becomes too stiff for your mixer turn out the dough onto a countertop surface. Wet your hands and finish off kneading the dough by hand.
5. DO NOT CHILL THE DOUGH. Divide into workable batches, roll out onto a floured surface and cut. You want these cookies to be on the thicker side (closer to 1/4 inch rather than 1/8).
6. Bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes. Let cool on the cookie sheet until firm enough to transfer to a cooling rack.

Now we prepare a batch of royal icing to assemble the cookies!

I used this recipe:

RECIPE

Now, using a smaller cookie cutter, cut the centers out of 1/3 of your cookies. 

**TIP** If you find that the cookies are too hard to cut through, microwave them at half power with a cup of hot water**

Trace the outline of a whole cookie and place your cut cookie on top.

Now fill them with sprinkles!

Pipe another outline of royal icing on the cookie to seal it and place the top cookie on

FROST AWAY! I even added the centers that I cut out of the cookies at the little heart in the front.

Wrap them in something pretty!! I downloaded these printable tags from HERE

ALL DONE!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

Fouth of July treats!

Happy Fourth of July Folks!!!!

Wahoo Independence day! The greatest mid-summer excuse to not go to work and throw a big BBQ bash!!

I bet you're dying to know what I'm doing! <--I'm just THAT interesting

Well, wonder no more!

My honey and I have been invited to a bash at our neighbors place.

These are neighbors we have only met once, and though I'm sure we made a fine (PSH, AWESOME!)  impression, it is in my nature to go overboard in attempting to better that impression.

SO, I went to super target this morning...an hour and $70 later, I came out with

-Meatballs

-Frozen mixed berries

-Hawaiian bread rolls

-Fresh strawberries

-BBQ sauce

-White chocolate

-Pink Moscato champagne

-A Korean BBQ slow cooker sauce

-Blue sprinkles

-Diet sprite

-Wax paper

-Frozen raspberry lemonade concentrate

Then I threw it all in a crock pot and waited 2 hours.

JUST KIDDING!

BUT....in less than 2 hours you can do all of these fun and easy party platters!

Start here:

Meatballs. Crock pot. 2 sauces. Plop them in and let them work.

Now, while that's working, take your bread rolls, squish them flatter (cuz they're big suckers!)

Mix oil, melted butter, parsley and garlic powder into a bowl.

Slice each roll in half and spread your sauce

Bake at 350 until they're crispy.

I only made one package of the rolls into garlic rolls. I left the remainder plain so that people can choose.

These rolls are going to serve as buns for your meatballs.

BAM- instant meatball sliders!!!

Next, melt your white chocolate in the microwave. It only took a minute for me.

Setup a little conveyor belt

Strawberries>Melted white chocolate>Blue sprinkles>Cookie sheet covered in wax paper

Dip your strawberries in the chocolate and then the sprinkles. Careful to leave some of the white chocolate showing. 

Yummmm

CRAP- Now I have leftover chocolate AND sprinkles!

At this point, I begin frantically searching my house for something that I can dip into these spare ingredients.

SCORE!

POPCORN.

This idea is genius and freaking DELISH

pop a bag of popcorn, while it's still hot, mix in your sprinkles and melted chocolate.





THAT's some good stuff!

NEXT we're going to made the pink champagne punch!!...But I haven't made it yet, so that'll be posted later!

Have fun today! Be SAFE!

<3S